Description:
The painting depicts W. C. "Bill" Lambert (an American in the R.F.C.) flying high over the Western Front in his favorite mount - S.E.-5, No. C. 1084. Bill described this engagement in an interview with artist Bob Cunningham... "I was daydreamding one day, it was the 4th of July 1918, beautiful sky, not a cloud in it, and I was daydreaming and thinking of back home on the river, the Ohio River. Definitely unconscious of anything around me...far as I knew there was nothing. And all of a sudden, bullets started going through the wing, and some through the fuselage. I looked back, there were three Germans, two Fokker D-7s and one little Pfalz D-3, all three coming right at me. I was scared 'hell bent for election,' and I dived so fast that I mutes have blanked out. My speedometer had gong over so hard and fast that it bent the needle. But, the first thing I knew I was back on top of those D-7s, and the Pfalz was right down below me. 1084 managed to burn each of those D-7s, and a friend of mine took the Pfalz and burnt him. All three of them hit the ground within two hundred feet of each other." Lambert took over S.E.-5, 1084 on June 25, 1918 and developed and intense affection for the aircraft - tweaking and tuning it to perfection. He flew it until he was shot down by ground fire on August 8, 1918. After taking numerous hits on that day, Bill set the aircraft down for a perfect landing in "no man's land," but it rolled out and crashed into a shell crater. In his book, "Combat Report," he describes his reluctant parting with 1084. "I look around and see, in a clump of trees about 200 years to my left, horses and troops. who are they? Two men step out of the trees and wave. A welcome sight. They are a troop of our calvary. I jump out and run toward them as the Germans start to shell 1084. I run back to her, reach into the cockpit and by some superhuman effort manage to get the watch from her dashboard. I stand beside her briefly, must things. farewell 1084. You have pulled me out of many a tight spot and have never let me down. Now we must part. German machine gun fire and shelling becomes heavier. Time for me to leave. I took on last look at 1084 and then rush to the calvary troop." Bill Lambert survived the war and at war's end had been credited with 22 victories. Returning home to the U.s.., Bill served in the U.s.. Army Corps in . He died in 1982.
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